Lake Speed Shows Us His Backyard 1980s NASCAR Race Shop! (AND The Go Kart That Beat Ayrton Senna)

And it felt like God spoke to me and said, "Lake, you going to have to do your own team." One of my favorite parts. We didn't go outside for nothing. Everything was built inside this place cuz I I used to come in here every day, go into my office and walk around in here and get sick to my stomach, you know? It was it was it was rough to look and see all the equipment just sitting here dusty and not being used or whatever. So all this this tape everything right here is how it came off the track. Yep. Heard him say to me, he said, "I can't believe a dang tourist came over here and won the world championship." There's a lot of buried treasures in here and one of them we're going to resurrect. We're going to arm you guys with a little bit of background knowledge so you can better understand what he's talking about while he's talking about it and you're not wondering so much. Before Lake Speed ever got the NASCAR, he was a go-kart wizard. Still is actually. He actually beat Erin Senna at the 1978 World Championship over in France in go-karts with a field full of guys that were going to Formula 1 after that. And he comes back, you know, just a dude from Mississippi. He goes in NASCAR. The building we're about to go in is where Lake operated his own race team from 1987 until 1993. We're out here with Lake Speed and Lake Speed Jr. at his former race shop. I don't we don't really know what happens there now. That's what we're here to find out. We haven't been in there yet. And they're going to show us what it's like and we'll get the the kids perspective on the progression of all of this, too. Sure. When did you build this building? 1966 86. summer of 86. And how old were you when this happened? I've been 14 years old. Then champions like Blake Speed have relied on winds quality products for over 47 years. To run up front in NASCAR Winston Cup competition, you need an edge. That's why I set up my own shop and build my own engine. And I use wind quality automotive chemicals in the operation and maintenance of my precision osmobile delta 88. W's products are available at Kmart, America's favorite store. So, I'm the vice president of sales and marketing at Total Seal, but prior to that, I worked for Joe Gibbs Racing and before that, Meling Racing, which we were there at the same time briefly. So, I've grown up in this my whole life. We're going to have some fun with some engine projects as part of this. So, there's a lot of buried treasures in here. One of them we're going to resurrect. That That's what we like to see is the the buried treasures. And the Where did you park the hauler? Right there. The hauler big 18-wheeler parked right over there. And you had you could take stuff out the either that end. This is a paint was a homemade paint booth right in in this end of the building. Parking lot was paved back then too. And the guys actually would do pit stop practice out in the parking lot. We're wondering that too. Where was where did that happen at right here? So you're doing pit stop practice in your this is all in your backyard. Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. The commute to work was really short back then. I'll tell you one thing. At that particular time when we built this place, Junior Johnson was the guy. He was the deal. And when this all came about, I I knew that Junior's shop was about this far from his house. Maybe his house might have been a little closer. Not much, but I thought to myself, you know, we already have the land. Don't have to go buy any property. All we got to do is build a building. So, work for Junior. Did the pit stop practice bother your horses? No, they didn't understand anything. They're just going to deal with it. They got used to it. Once they get fed, they're happy. Thank you. No problem. [Music] Come in. Here's kind of a lot of history all around. This display booth thing here is basically two careers. You got the carding career on the right, most of it, and the left hand side the stock car stuff. What is some of this stuff? Was that your jacket and the the world championship jacket? Uh, one of the years, not the year I won, but I went over to Europe and run that race six times as Aaron Senno was rising through F1. Did you like seeing that? Cuz every time you heard about him, you're like, I beat that guy before, you know? After I got involved in stock cars, I never thought about anything else really. It was total focus. I couldn't I had no idea what happened to any of those people. I did know when I was finished the last year I ran with the cars, I knew that there was at least six guys that I raced against in Europe that within 18 to 24 months were driving Formula 1 cars. And I talked to one of them in particular, uh, it might have been the year I won the world championships or the year before. And, uh, Elio D'Angelus, and I asked Elio, I said, "What's it like driving a Formula 1?" And he looked at me real straight face and said, "Just a big go-kart." [Music] Okay, that sounds pretty good. So anyway, that was that was kind of really that that's cool. The uh this trophy is from the world championships. Did you Wow, that's cool. France and the other one is the Darlington trophy. Did they ship you that or was that a carry-on? H Did they ship that back to you or was that a carry-on? Carry on. Really? Did you have to like put on your lap the whole flight home? Tell them what the uh headline of the newspaper article was in the paper then after after you won the world championship in France. What was the headline of it? Ohex told me the story and so is mom. It said tourist wins championship. Tourist. I don't know if that was in the newspaper or not, but I do know that the head guy for Carling in Europe Mhm. was also the head guy for Miami that makes the engines and a lot of that stuff and everything. Now, I heard him say to me, he said, "I can't believe a dang tourist came over here and won the world championship." But the odds of that happening were like slam and none. my in my entire racing career, it's been a god thing because it's just the statistics don't add up to the results. It's it's amazing. That's cool. That one's in French. The plaque. Wow, that's neat. So, check it out, too. Is it? So that's 1978 the world carting championship and then there's a 2008 WKA national champ national championship as well. So you went from stock cars back to go-karts. Yep. We'll show you that in a minute. There's a whole lot of go-kart stuff here. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. Was this your office whenever this was the race team? No. Had secretary in here. This has been my office all along in here and then another office outside for the crew chief, you know, to take care of everything. Is this like the original desk? This is all original. So, this is like time capsule right in here. This is exactly this. This is time capsule. All of it except this cabinet. I had a renter that couldn't pay his bill and uh but he did woodworking so I trade him out. I needed a nice trophy cabinet. That's a real expensive cabinet. But it's a nice one. These are the near misses, huh? Oh, close but no cigar. That's funny. Broken parts. So, this like you were going to win a race, but then one of these broke and that's Charlotte fastest car by far. The Coke World 600 92 93. Yeah, 93. It says I was there. I remember that it was something happened. You qualified second round fast or something like that. On the first green flag run, you go from 21st, whatever it was, all the way to third. I mean, running down Nhard and Gordon just catching them coming in. Gordon went in there as Davey. Davey and Gordon. I think Dave and Nhard were leading that nut. Is that like a rib bone? Now that's that doesn't really belong in there. But what that is, can you believe that went through a tractor tire? No. Yes. You'll see tractor right there. But this son of a gun, I had a flat on the tractor. I took it to the tire shop up here and the guy gave that to me when he got back. That's what went down. Part of a deer antler. Wow. Went. How did that drive? And I mean, that's it. That's crazy. That was in there. Anyway, it's one thing to think about this cuz that actually went through the tire, right? that went through a tire under caution. We came in, made a pit stop, and when I they put new tires on the car, and went back out on the racetrack, and that thing went through the right front tire. Wow. Right on the lap coming to the green flag, and I was on the front row late in the race and uh that was ugly. It's a crank snout. Oh, yeah. This is Daytona 1988. Yep. Dayton 500. You were leading the race and that happened. Wow. So you went to the Stavo shop. You talked about them. Davey or Bobby went the 500. Yeah. Yeah. He wouldn't have if this broke. Wow. That's crazy. That's There wouldn't have been the Oh, father son finished. And Noah. And what's that one? Darlington 1983. You like Darlington? leading. Yeah, let him a bunch and twice that happened. Broke the bow with just a few laps to go leading, you know, leading or running second or something right there where you Wow. Anyway, that's just good. Those are the ones close but no cigar. That's cool that you kept that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you know, I'm sorry. when you have a bunch of near misses, but you miss a lot, you know, uh it's kind of nice to be able to remember, well, you know, it was close if if such and such a had to happen. Is this what your hauler looked like? One of these souvenir people came up with that. I don't know what what they were thinking about, but that was that's so cool. Yeah. I think a lot of people our age, if they're familiar with NASCAR in the '9s, they know you as the Cartoon Network guy. Well, back that's back to like I said the how they did things the old days. Now, all those cars now are all wraps. Of course, those were all painted back then. I actually was at Meling and we we did the Cartoon Network stuff. We had to paint all of that. All the all the characters and everything were painted. So they were individual decals. So you had to paint the car. So like the birthday car, like this helmet, all that color was all paint. But then each of those individual decals had to be put on there and then painted over it and sanded. It was uh it was a ton of work. So now they just put a wrap on, just wrap the whole thing and call it done. That's podia from the world championships. Look what's in behind me. What's behind you? Your wins. Your future sponsor. Can you believe that now? Is that the foreshadowing stuff? I can I can believe that. There's a lot of weird stuff that's happened. Weird stuff like that happens to us, too. I do believe that completely. Just hand of God stuff just is, you know, undeniable. How did that sponsor deal come about? a strange kind of deal. I', you know, I'd worked with several different people, you know, sponsor hunters and PR people and whatever. And, uh, one guy was real close friends with mine called me one day while we were building this thing, not knowing what we were going to do with it, uh, and said, "You looking for a sponsor by any chance?" And I said, "Yep, we are." And he said, "Winds is not happy where they are and they're uh looking for something else. Would you be interested in talking to him?" I said, "Of course." And deal with together. Huh. The whole story is is uh [Applause] pretty amazing that I had gotten released from uh the 75 car early in the season of 86 and didn't know what I was going to do. was sitting out trying to make a flower bed in front of the little house out there. And it felt like God spoke to me and said, "Lake, you gonna have to do your own team." And I kind of chuckled. Said, "Well, I don't have any money to do that with. Don't have any resources. No way. How can that happen?" He said, "You just do what you can do today and let me take care of the rest of it." I had a bulldozer I bought because we started out with started out with a with a Kaiser blade, then went to a chainsaw, then went to a bush hog, and then a bulldozer. Used bulldozer showed up showed up and started making things happen. So I thought to myself, well, I got land, I got a bulldozer. Only thing I can do is go start making a place to put a building. So, I started clearing clearing stuff the same day probably. I don't remember exactly, but if it wasn't that day, it had been the next morning for sure. Wow. But, uh, started doing it and, uh, didn't know what what I was going to do. And then out of nowhere, I got a thing in the mail. It came and a company that my dad had invested in years and years before that I'd never gotten any money out of at all. uh the people that were in charge of it decided to liquidate that asset and it was exactly what it took to build this building. Wow. Put all the equipment in just out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. Didn't see it coming. And uh people started driving up the driveway saying, "I understand you're going to start a race team. You need any help?" I told him, I said, "Don't know. we don't have a sponsor or whatever, but we're going to build a building. And I told them the same story and they said, "I'm in." Wow. And uh we started going and then like I said, then the sponsor shows up. Guy calls me and says, "You need a sponsor." And I get a sponsor. We started building cars. Wow. Everything a lot of stuff's happened since then. It's Noah's arc. I always thought this is Noah's arc. I was thinking that when I was still like this is like your thing, you know, just it is. It is. Was this the first first cup car? Yeah. Where was the crew chief's office in here? Uh right down here. So you got you got engine room in here, too. Oh, yeah. We did everything. Engine room and crew chief's office. Yeah. Wow. This is cool. We We didn't go outside for nothing. Everything was built inside this place. You've got to have the coolest name in racing. like you were destined to be like a great race car driver with an you know my dad was one of seven speed boys seven they lived on a dirt farm in South Mississippi and uh I do have a brother that did a little motorcycle racing at one time and he when I the stock car thing got going he actually ran the stock car a little bit we he was the one that suggested it said you know when you're running these limited schedules we got a we had a high bank half mile asphalt uh stock car track in Jackson. He said, "We ought to get us get one of those short short track cars and let you get more seat time and learn more about the chassis and stuff running out there." And he said, "When you're not running, I'll drive it." So, he ran it some and I drove some and that was uh that was part of the education for me to learn about chassis stuff, too, was just working on the cars. That's a ASA style car like same kind of that Mark Martin and Rusty all these guys ran back then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Well, let's get back over here where where the business was around this way. Give you an idea how it all flowed at work. And how how similar does coming in here look as it was when you were younger? Like does this take you back coming in here? Like Yeah. Yeah, it it does. You know, it was it was different. Obviously, there was surface plate back here where that big table is next to the tractor. There was no surface plate. We didn't have no surface plate. No, not that one. But the one for the chassis. Oh, yeah. That was a big underneath this beam was where the cars were the frames and everything were built. If you doing front clip, rear clip, whatever's going on, total chassis, whatever. There was a jig underneath that thing there and that's where the car went. That big table over there where they actually built the front front clips and the rear clips. Put all the fabrication stuff and steel and everything was back here. So you basically did all the fab work from from this beam this this way. That's why you have curtains hanging right there. Oh, so keep the the dust down. Keep most all the nasty stuff was back here. This is where Yeah, heavy fab was back here. Heavy fabrication stuff was done there. Then you move to the between this beam and that beam. This was all the minor stuff that happened in this area here. And then the then there was another curtain that was pulled from that beam over and then the finished the finish work was done over there and then out the door. Yeah, there wasn't a setup plate. There were four painted spots on the floor that was a level spot and you set it up with strings and levels over on there. You just made sure. Was this one of those squares here? No. No. No. They were over there by the front door. Oh, yeah. What are these things? Uh, this was see it easier. This is one of my favorite cars. This car was run as an intermediate car and came close to winning a bunch of races. Then when after after I'm out of stock cars and been out of stock cars for several years, uh a friend of mine introduced me to vintage stock car racing and I went and drove one of his cars at a vintage stock car event and I said, "Wow, man." It was like five years, five or six years maybe after I had been out of out of cars, out of the stock car thing. And I said, "Dang, Ron, I got a couple old cars back there at the shop. I'm going home and fixing building me a road race car out of one of these things so I can come play with you guys." And uh so that's I came back here and turned this thing into a road race car and uh road raced it with the with the vintage guys for about two years, I think it was. Then they started getting crazy and putting current motors in the cars and having rebuilt every race and I thought I was going to do this for fun. Yeah, they they they upped the Annie really quick. They they handed me right out of that right quick. I just I couldn't. So when did you forward to play with that? You ran for your own team and then you went to Bud Moore and then to Meling like let me tell you let me tell you the progression there everything that happened. So we we ran uh the winds 83 car for two years and then wins uh said you know we can't afford to do this uh and especially you're winning races now at this level we you know we just we can't give you the kind of support you you deserve. We thought at that time, you know, if you win races and you're running it up front, you know, the sponsorship's going to come to you. Wrong. That was really wrong. The year between uh 88 and ' 89, uh we were running on fumes, got a deal with the bullseye barbecue sauce thing. It came along with not very much money, but you know, was all we could do. So we ran ran that se season and had the most awful misfortune worst luck ever worst season I ever had. I mean I got in a wreck at Pocono and broke my shoulder and so then I was out of out of the car for which is crazy. Only about six races I think or something like six or seven races. And uh during that series, we put other drivers in the car and every they wrecked almost every race. Just about destroyed the car almost every race. And long story short, at the end of that season, we were pretty much done. You know, that was uh we had let the guys go and we didn't have any didn't come up with any sponsorship. I think we ran 91. No, it said 90. I think I ran four races. Had like two guys working here and uh we went Daytona and a couple other races. It was Is that what these cars were left from? Uh no, these whole deal. That was that was a different even different style car. That was all that stuff back then was rear steer cars. Yeah. The uh first front steer car that we got was in 79. So, where did these ones come from? Uh, these cars were all built in. We run 90 only ran a few races in 90. Kale called me in 91 and asked me to come manage his team and drive the team down there. He said, "I need help big time." So, I went down there and did that in 91. Just left my stuff just sitting here not doing anything with it. 92 I had somebody come to me with the Purex sponsorship, but…